This week's Theme: We Matter
Day 1: God Knows Our Name
Sylvia's mother says Sylvia is busy,
Too busy to come to the phone…
The1970’s song by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show might have seemed odd as it broke into the somber funeral atmosphere. But as the family members introduced the song and talked about what it meant to their dear departed, I wasn’t thinking about conventionality.
For one thing, I couldn’t help chuckling at the irony that the song was being played through a cell phone even as the millennials, Gen X-ers Gen Z-ers, and Gen-Next-ers probably puzzled over the dated lines:
And the operator says forty cents more
For the next three minutes…
But mostly I was intrigued by the reason this song had been a favorite of the deceased—such a favorite that she had requested it for her funeral. The song, she had said, was the reason her name was, for the first time ever, “called on the radio.” Her name was Sylvia.
For this Sylvia, airplay of Sylvia’s Mother was, on a whole different level, music to her ears. The song transported her from the “obscurity of ordinary” to the will o’ the wisp of recognition, fame, and significance.
Sylvia was not alone in her desire to add her mark to the massive wall of human existence. Philosophers through the centuries have described the deeply rooted yearning for meaning, esteem, value, and significance in the human soul.
We long to know that we are more than a mere whisper in the wind. And again and again in Scripture, we see a God who meets us in this need with singular recognition, individual attention, personal interaction.
God [spoke] to Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend (Exodus 33:11). He called Abraham God’s friend (2 Chronicles 20:7, Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23). He intervened in Hagar’s desperation with intimate knowledge of her identity and circumstances (Genesis 16:8). He resettled Jacob and gave him a new identity (Genesis 35:1,10).
Jesus, as the Incarnate God, continued to show this personal involvement in the lives He touched. Tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners—they followed Him, sat with Him, ate with Him. He called them by name—invited them, touched them, healed them, defended them.
And in the ultimate demonstration of love He took their blame, shame, scorn, and disdain—along with ours and all of humanity’s—as He offered His life with a prayer, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34 – KJV).
It was the weight of “them” that lay on His shoulders—that pressed into His crucified body—the weight of every Matthew, Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, Mary, Martha, Lazarus; every Abraham, Hagar, Jacob, Moses. Every Sylvia.
Because Dr. Hook airplay or not, we matter.
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